Morbid obesity is a behavioral disorder which may render a person unable to lose weight by normal procedures. Morbid obesity is defined by Dorland's Medical Dictionary as "the condition of weighing two or three or more times the ideal weight; morbid obesity is often associated with serious and life threatening disorders." No pathology can be demonstrated in the stomach and small intestine in this eating disorder. The digestive system is normal. It is well established in the medical world that obesity of this magnitude lead to a much shorter than normal life span. There is severe strain on the heart, lungs and musculoskeletal systems, and threats to the general health comes from many directions.
For several decades, various bold and courageous surgeons have subjected a very limited number of patients having morbid obesity to surgical modifications, including:
1) Removing part of the stomach and rearranging the small bowel;
2) Stapling part of the stomach and rearranging the small bowel; and PA1 3) Bypassing the stomach by rearranging the jejunum and making a pouch of the upper intestines. See for example, Halmi, Gastric Bvpass for Massive Obesity, Chapter 20 of "Obesity", edited by Stunkard, pages 25-38; and Kral, Surgical Therapy, Chapter 3 of "Obesity" edited by Greenwood, pages 25-38.
Many of these procedures seemed encouraging and promising at the time but none of them resulted in happy, healthy patients recovering from morbid obesity. For one thing, all of these techniques are irreversible and commit the patient to suffer symptoms related to, for example, indigestion, poor vitamin assimilation, diarrhea, malnutrition and the like. The surgeon cannot rearrange these organs without danger to the patient.